First of all, since this game is near-impossible to find anymore, I'd like to issue a warning to anyone who might consider going through the grueling process of tracking it down: if you have Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, don't bother. Archon Ultra is a DOS game, and it heavily (HEAVILY) relies on some of the extended code provided by DOS4GW. It can be run in DOS mode under Windows 98, and it can be run naturally under anything prior to that, but newer versions of Windows absolutely CANNOT run this game. That having been said, though, if you're one of those people smart enough to still be using Windows 98 or below, I definitely recommend scouring the internet for this elusive little game -- a should-be classic that just wasn't meant to be. If you're a fan of the original Archon, you'll no doubt be familiar with the basic setup of the game. You begin by choosing to play as either the Light Side or the Dark Side. Each side gets its own army of mythological creatures, led by either a Wizard (Light Side) or a Sorceress (Dark Side). These armies are lined up on what appears to be a chess board, in two very chess-like rows. The board has mostly alternating black and white squares, but across the board in a plus and diamond pattern are gray squares. At least, they start out gray. As the game progresses, they change color, slowly fading to white, then slowly fading to black, and then back again -- the progression of day and night. There are also five squares with strange markings on them -- ''charmed squares'', as it were. These consist of the very center square, the left- and right-middle squares, and the top- and bottom-middle squares (occupied by the Wizard and Sorceress). Archon is, quite simply, the battle for control of these five charmed squares. To win, you must have one piece occupying each charmed square, or you must take out your opponent's entire army. As with chess, you are given the ability to pick up and move any of your pieces, though their movements are limited (each piece has a set number of spaces it can travel, and only creatures that can ''fly'' or ''teleport'' can pass through other pieces -- ''ground'' creatures cannot). If you should happen to land on an opponent's piece, battle ensues. And this is where the similarities to chess end. Instead of just taking your opponent's piece, you and your opponent must engage in real-time combat for it. And this is far, far more involved than you might think! First of all, each creature in the game (and keep in mind that the Light and Dark sides have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT complement of creatures) has its own speed and movement abilities (flying, walking, etc.), its own separate set of attacks, its own life bar, etc. Each of the game's many many creatures is unique, and must be treated as unique. And unlike the previous incarnations of Archon, this particular game is fairly well-balanced. Even though the Light and Dark sides have completely different armies, every creature seems to have one or two creatures it excels at , and one or two creatures it's really weak against. This is partially due to the tweaking of a few pieces that were previously capable of taking out the opponent's army all by themselves (anyone who's played the original Commodore or Apple version might remember the banshee and the phoenix, whose sound and fire waves took up almost the entire battlefield!). This is also partially due to the innate improvements in the battle system itself. First of all, in this particular version of Archon, the battles were designed by the same crew that worked on Star Control, and it shows. Each creature now has two attacks instead of one (one ''main'' attack, mostly the same as in the original Archon, and one ''special move'' added specifically for Archon Ultra). And the battlefield is now a bit more interactive than in any previous incarnations of the game. Whereas the older Archons merely had obstacles that would pop up every now and again, Archon Ultra now has landscapes, complete with trees and s (which can be burnt away by anyone with a firey attack), rocks (which can't), water (on lighter-colored squares only, slows down non-flying creatures), lava (on darker-colored squares only, steadily does damage to non-flying creatures, and can be to the wizard or sorceress if they should happen to land in the middle of a lava pool after teleporting), and one of the coolest new features, HEALING POOLS (on charmed squares only, they will begin to flash every now and again, at which point they will ripple for a short period of time, and if you stand on or fly above them while they ripple, you will recover some of your life). And while the battlefield isn't exactly immense, it's larger than in any of the other incarnations of Archon to date, and you and your opponent may end up getting pretty far apart from one another. And while traditional video game logic says that a split-screen would be necessary under such circumstances, the Star Control team instead went for the ultimately less confusing (and more practical) zoom-out approach. Works like a charm, and couldn't have been handled better. The battles are also rather strategic, and are often weighed more heavily in one creature's favor than in another's. For example, the color of the square upon which the battle is fought determines which side gets a health bonus and which side gets a health handicap. And considering that one charmed square is white, one charmed square is black, and three charmed squares are of the day-to-night-to-day variety, this can present quite a bit of challenge, and will require quite a bit of careful planning. Oh, and did I mention the fact that the wizard and sorceress can cast spells? These include spells to revive a creature, summon an elemental creature to aid you for one turn only, imprison an opponent's creature to one square until midday or midnight, heal one creature of your own, teleport one of your pieces anywhere on the game board (except for the charmed squares, which cannot be targetted by any spell), exchange two pieces of any color, or reverse the flow of time (a rather trick to pull if it's midday or midnight, since at those moments it will completely reverse time, potentially catching some of your opponent's creatures quite off-guard). Each spell can only be cast once per game, but a well-timed well-played spell can change the tides of an entire game -- as can a brutal early-on assault of your opponent's wizard or sorceress, resulting in him/her being unable to cast spells anymore at all! But, by far, the most strategic thing in this entire game lies in the pieces themselves. Try as hard as you might, you probably won't be able to kill the Dark Side's sorceress with a knight, nor the Light Side's wizard with a goblin (knights and goblins are roughly equivalent to pawns in chess -- they're numerous and mostly useless). However, the crafty gamer might come to realize that the knight can get underneath the dragon (thus out of range of the dragon's firey breath entirely) and hack away to his heart's content, or the goblin can duck out of the way of the genie's magical energy bolts and give him quite a WHACK with his club before he has a chance to run away. Each creature in the game has a purpose -- some other creature it excels at defeating. And, consequently, each creature also has a weakness. Although it takes a lot of practice to learn the specific nuances of every creature in Archon -- much less Archon Ultra, with double the skills! -- the result is one of the best 2-player games in existence, where both strategy and skill are required in order to succeed. And given the game's innate strategic nature, adequate and discernable graphics are really all that's necessary, but the graphics in Archon Ultra are actually quite fantastic nonetheless. Though extremely low-resolution, the creatures are beautifully animated, the battlefields contain rippling lakes of water or bubbling lakes of lava (as well as trees and s that can be burnt and withered away), and some of the creatures' attacks definitely look like they'd hurt. A lot. In addition, one can't expect any sort of spectacular ending to a competitive puzzle game, but the full-screen pictures of either the wizard or sorceress gloating at his/her victory are definitely fun to see, and can add a fair amount of insult to injury when brutally annihilating a friend. (: The graphics in Archon Ultra not only get the job done, they really get you into the feel of the game as well. The music, too, is very good and rather catchy, and does a great job of setting the mood for a war between good and evil while never grating on the nerves (which is actually quite a feat, considering that the game's soundtrack consists of only the board music and the battle theme!). The sound effects are also quite good, though oftentimes much louder than they need to be (sometimes obnoxiously so). But when it comes down to it, the dragon breathing fire sounds like a dragon breathing fire, the banshee's howl sounds like a very very evil howl indeed, etc. And the little blips used to let you know that you're able to attack again are always audible above the music and other sounds, and are of very distinctly different pitches for players 1 and 2. The game does have its share of problems, though, the most noteworthy of which are technical difficulties. As mentioned before, any post-98 version of Windows is incapable of playing the game, but older machines, too, will play this game at a snail's pace. Basically, the ideal computer for this game is a newer system that happens to be running Windows 98 or lower. Also, the game supposedly supports modem play, but there are so many bugs in the modem code as to render this feature unusable. 2-player games are best played from the same computer. And 1-player games, while good for practicing and getting the feel of your pieces, will eventually lose all challenge once you get good enough at the game. The computer's AI is admittedly above average, but it's also very predictable. Once you learn the computer's method of playing, you'll never lose to it again. The other major downside lies in the game's controls. While very responsive, and great once you get used to them, your piece cannot use either of its attacks while standing still. Period. In order to use an attack, your piece MUST be moving. This can lead to a lot of frustration in the beginning, but you really WILL get used to it fairly quickly. Just keep at it. Trust me, it's worth it in the long run. All in all, Archon Ultra is barnone THE best version of Archon ever made, and quite possibly one of the best strategic 2-player games on the planet. Just be prepared to devote some time to learning its nuances, as it's definitely NOT a game you can master overnight. Not even close.
The original Archon game introduced many special rules to a kind of gameplay that is otherwise especially reminiscent of chess. Archon Ultra mostly used the same gameplay design, but has improved graphics over the first ... Read Full Review
Lights, camera, action.. This game is the very best of the 90's when its come to chess, or chess look-a-likes. It's not a normal chess game, this game is so much more. You play it on a 9x9 board, and with different ch... Read Full Review
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